THE NEVER-ENDING SELF-DRIVING CAR PROJECT\
For the people who develop self-driving cars—the software engineers, the hardware tinkerers, the welders and the bumper-affixers, the C-Suite execs and the marketing folks paid to sell it all—the rest of the world is bit like like a kid-crowded backseat. Are we there yet? the globe asks.
Sometimes, the public is excited, because autonomous vehicles promise to, perhaps, one day banish dangerous drunk, drowsy, and distracted drivers in favor of precise machines. (Nearly 40,000 Americans died on the roads last year, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration attributes about 90 percent of those to human error.) Sometimes, the public is fearful, because loosing new technology on public streets can be frightening. Just last month, a self-driving Uber testing in the Phoenix metro area struck and killed a woman as she crossed the street.
Either way, people want to know when autonomous vehicles will get here, when they will be ready. Here’s the unsatisfying but correct answer: never. “The technology is constantly being updated,” says Nidhi Kalra, a roboticist who co-directs the Rand Corporation’s Center for Decision Making Under Uncertainty. “Sometimes we will talk about it as if, ‘We have this self-driving car, we have this product.’ But with software updates, there’s a new vehicle every week.”
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